TWO LOCAL SAINTS: Right-Believing Passion Bearers and Holy Martyrs Princes Æthelred and Æthelberht Saint Æthelred and Saint Æthelberht*, brothers, princes of Kent, martyred c. 640 (Lectionary date), most probably c. 669. Feast: 17th October -Translation of their relics. TROPARION (Tone 4): O holy princes and passion-bearers Æthelred and Æthelberht,/ in thy holy martyrdom thou didst show unto us the true Faith, /for in obedience to Christ was pour out thy blood as a fragrant balm, /and whose sacred relics were revealed by light divine, /pray for us, o good ones, that our souls be saved. KONTAKION (Tone 1): Let us praise the righteous martyrs: / the brothers Æthelred and Æthelberht, / for in their martyric deaths and in their holy relics / they exude, O Christ God, divine grace from Thee the well-spring of life! ‘Passion Bearer’ denotes a particular God-inspired saint, one who, rather than resisting evil with evil, and spilling blood, has faced his or her bodily death in a peaceful, Christ-like, manner. Passion Bearers are not explicitly killed for their faith, though they hold to that faith with piety and true love of God. Thus, although all martyrs are Passion Bearers, not all Passion Bearers are Martyrs in the strict understanding of the term. In the Russian tradition we find such jewels of peace-loving passion bearers as the princes and brothers, St. Boris and St. Gleb. Here, in Essex, was once venerated the holy relics of two other such princely brothers, the Passion Bearers, St. Æthelred and St. Æthelberht. St. Æthelred and St. Æthelberht were of a family both royal and pious. Their great grandfather, King Æthelberht of Kent, was a saint (Feast: 25th Feb.); as was a great aunt, St. Æthelburh of Lyminge (Feast 5th April); their sister, Eormenbeorg (commonly: ‘Ermerburg[a’]; Feast: 19th Oct.); and three of their nieces, St. Mildburh of Wenlock (Feast: 23rd Feb.), St. Mildgyth (Feast: 17th Jan.), and St. Mildrith (= Mildrið, Mildthryth, commonly ‘Mildred’; Feast: 13th July). The story of the martyrdom of St. Æthelred and St. Æthelberht forms a not unimportant episode in the Life of St. Mildrith, as her monastery of Minster in Thanet was founded in expiation (wergild) for their murder. Eorcenberht seized the Kingdom of Kent in 640 in precedence to his elder brother Eormenred. Both Eorcenberht and Eormenred were sons of Eadbald of Kent (r. c. 616–640). The story of the martyrdom of St. Æthelred and St. Æthelberht, contained in the Latin Passio, tells that Eormenred and his wife Oslafa had several children, including the two sons, Æthelred and Æthelberht, and a daughter Eormenbeorg, also known as Domne Eafe. Eafe married Merewalh, ruler of the Maegonsaetan, a people situated in the west Midlands in the Shropshire area. King Eorcenberht married Seaxburh, daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, and ruled as a Christian king: Eorcenberht was the first ruler to order the destruction of all pagan idols throughout his kingdom, and to establish the forty-day Lenten Fast to be observed by royal authority (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iii, 8). Eorcenberht had two sons, Ecgberht and Hlothhere, and two daughters, Eormenhild and Eorcongota. On Eorconberht's death of the plague in 664, Ecgberht succeeded him as King of Kent. The princes, Æthelred and Æthelberht, who were pious youths, lived at Eastry (nr. Sandwich) in Kent, in the royal palace, seat of the Saxon kings of Kent. Eastry lies on the Roman road north from Dover to Richborough Castle. According to record, the royal residence was passed to the priory of Christchurch in Canterbury as wergild for the crime. The site of this ancient palace is believed to now be occupied by Eastry Court, close to the church. A royal retainer named Thunor, possessed by the evil desire to secure the succession of King Ecgberht against a possible rival claim by the king’s young cousins, had the youths secretly murdered, and their bodies hidden beneath the royal seat in the Hall at Eastry. Immediately, the princes’ absence was immediately noticed, but they were nowhere to be found. The crime was revealed only by a column of divine light which appeared shining above the place of concealment of their holy bodies. Witnessing the miraculous revelation, King Egberht soon learned of the crime from Thunor. The king, consumed with sorrow and remorse at the evil murders which had been perpetrated in his name, desired to have the saints buried at Canterbury. However, those charged with the task of carrying the holy relics to Canterbury found it impossible to move them. Egberht took advice from holy hierarchs, who recommended that the king have the relics taken to Wakering in the neighbouring Kingdom of the East Saxons (Essex) for burial, where a monastery already existed. During the seventh- and eighth-centuries there existed close family ties between the royal families of Kent and Essex- for example, King Sledd (of Essex) was married to Ricula, sister of St. Æthelberht (King of Kent). The site of the veneration of the saints’ relics is identified as Great Wakering (nr. Southend-on-Sea), and only a few miles from the Saxon royal burial ground at Prittlewell. With this new destination, the bodies consented to be moved; and there, at Wakering, St. Æthelred and St. Æthelberht were venerated as passion-bearers and Holy Christian Martyrs. Around the time of the martyrdoms, Egberht's mother, Queen Seaxburh, founded her own double-monastery at Minster in Sheppey, on the south of the Thames Estuary – directly opposite Wakering, on the north bank. Ecgberht then founded the monastery of Minster in Thanet, headed by Eormenbeorg, the sister of the murdered princes. Eormenbeorg was the mother of St. Mildtryhth [Mildthryð,] (Feast: 30th July), who afterwards succeeded her as abbess. Some sources also claim that another monastery was established at Eastry for the same reason. Another sister, Mildburh, remained among the Magonsaetan and was head of the monastery of Much Wenlock in Shropshire: St. Mildburh of Wenlock (Feast: 23rd Feb.); another sister was the holy nun, St. Mildgyth (Feast: 17th Jan.); and two aunts are also Saints – St. Seaxburh of Ely (Feasts: 6th July; 17th October- translation), and St. Eanswith of Folkestone (Feast: 12th Sept.). In the early Saxon period Great Wakering became the site of a minster church and monastic community. The place-name Wakering derives from the Old English Wœceringas meaning 'the settlement of the sons or people of Wacor or Wécer'. Wacor may have been one of the founding members of the minster. It is now known that the twelfth-century church of St. Nicholas is built on the site of the Anglo-Saxon minster; excavations in 2000 revealed part of a boundary ditch and other features in the eastern side of the churchyard; other recent excavations have uncovered a site of middle Saxon occupation including a fragment of ornamented stone-sculpture, and other Saxon artefacts and features have been found in the brickfields to the north and south of the village. The minster was supported by agricultural production and perhaps by other forms of small-scale industrial production and trade, so it is likely that the monastic community at Wakering would have been supported economically by a lay community. The saints’ relics were venerated at Great Wakering for around three hundred years, from around the time of their holy martyrdom [c. 669] until they were translated [c.991] to Ramsey by Bishop Æthelwine. Right-Believing Passion-Bearers and Holy Martyrs Æthelred and Æthelberht pray to God for us! * Note: Modern spellings of Anglo-Saxon names vary. Saints Ethelred and Ethelbert are the most common renditions; Fr. A. Phillips gives Aildred for the former, D. H. Farmer, in The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, gives Ethelbricht for the latter. The earliest account of the murdered princes is the Passio by Byrhtferth of Ramsey (c.970– c.1020) (BHL 2643), which forms cc. 1–10 of his Historia regum; later versions of the legend are recorded by Goscelin (BHL 5960) and William of Malmesbury . Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia , ed. T. Arnold, 2 vols., RS (London, 1882–5), ii.1–13; WMalm, GR ii.209; M. Lapidge, ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia Regum attributed to Symeon of Durham', ASE 10 (1981), 97–122, repr. Lapidge, ALL ii.317–42; D. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), esp. pp. 15–21, 89–104; Blair, ‘Handlist’, p. 507. In addition, the history of the holy martyrs appears in Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, compiled in the early thirteenth-century. APPENDICES: 1. Family Tree of the Kentish Royal Family. 2. Map of the Thames Estuary. 3. S. Mildryð. British Library, Cotton MS Caligula A.xiv, ff. 121v-124v. Written in Old English, mid-11th cent., it appears to pre-date St. Mildrith's translation to Canterbury. One possibility is that it is copied from a text (now lost) that accompanied the relics from Thanet. The text breaks off (at Thunor's death) in mid sentence. Modern English trans. By Oswald Cockayne, in Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England (1866), vol. iii, pp. 423-433. 1. Family Tree of the Kentish Royal Family 2. Map of the Thames Estuary showing proximity of places associated with the Holy Martyrdom of Saint Æthelred and Saint Æthelberht GREAT WAKERING – site of the Monastery, home of the relics PRITTLEWELL – Burial site of the East Saxon Royal Family MINSTER IN SHEPPEY – Monastery, founded by St. Seaxburh MINSTER IN THANET – Monastery of St. Mildrith CANTERBURY EASTRY – Seat of the Kentish Royal Family, the place of Martyrdom 2. S. Mildryð. .